


Questions

by writeitininkorinblood



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Thorne & Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-02
Updated: 2017-02-02
Packaged: 2018-09-21 15:33:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9555182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writeitininkorinblood/pseuds/writeitininkorinblood
Summary: Lily is actually a ninja. Albus just wants to sleep.





	

“Al!”

The voice pierced Albus’ ear in his sleep and his first instinct was to swat at the air near his ear, but flies don’t talk.

“Albus,” he corrected automatically. But then he realised that _flies don’t talk_ and that the irritating voice in question was particularly familiar… As soon as his brain registered who exactly was stood next to his bed he jolted awake and pulled his duvet up around his chest. Sure enough, when his eyes adjusted to the dark he found his sister peeking her head round the edge of his bed curtains, looking insistent and far too chirpy for what Albus could best estimate to be the middle of the night.

“What are you doing in my dorm, Lily?” he hissed, both irritated he was no longer sleeping and vaguely terrified that Lily seemed to have stealth powers. “How did you even get in here? You’re a girl, not to mention a Gryffindor. And it’s late,” he groaned, rubbing at his face. He didn’t have the mental capacity to deal with this.

Lily just shrugged like it was no big deal. She’d had a question and she’d wanted answers, curfews and house dormitories and spells weren’t going to stop her.

“The password was easy to guess,” she explained, like having the potential to do something justified actually doing the thing. “I mean ‘Salazar’, _really_? And there’s actually a pretty simple spell to get past all those annoying gender charms.”

Brushing away all further questioning, she expectantly waited for her brother to stop blinking at her like she was an Erumpet in his bedroom.   
“Great. Good to know…” Albus trailed off, no less confused. Clearly direct questions were the way to proceed. “Now what are you doing here?” he asked slowly, infusing the words with as much of a sentiment of _please leave_ as possible.

“We need to talk. Move over,” Lily ordered, hitting at Albus’ legs until he shuffled right over to the edge of his mattress so she could sit on his bed, pulling the curtains back into place and casting _lumos_ so he could see her insistent face. It was far more appealing when it was Scorpius in his bed. Far fewer questions and far cosier.

“What? Lily-” he began, trying to stymie this conversation until morning.

He was silenced with one look. With the annoyance and lack of patience in her face, Lily looked terrifyingly like their mother. Clearly he wasn’t going to get out of this discussion just by willing it, no matter how hard he tried, so he evidently had to sit through it. The resigned change was obvious in his face, and Lily took it to mean she was free to ask her questions.

“Now, tell me. Are you dating Scorpius?” she asked innocently.

Forgetting he was in a room of sleeping people he didn’t want to wake up, Albus squawked out a harassed “ _what?!”._ It was true, he was dating Scorpius. But he didn’t want to tell people that. Their roommates knew, but that was enough. Lily knowing meant James knowing, which meant their parents knowing and that was a no. Big no. Huge no. He couldn’t forget his and Scorpius’ last names. It was like a Romeo and Juliet complication. When they’d read the play in Muggle Studies he couldn’t stop thinking about the two of them and, by the distant, conflicted look on Scorpius’ face, it was a mutual feeling. Albus had been meaning to talk about it, but there were always more pressing issues when they were alone. Like how soft Scorpius’ hair was and how pretty his lips were when they were kissed red.

“Don’t play stupid, Albus,” Lily complained. She’d risked getting caught out of bed for answers, and she wasn’t going back without concrete proof that she was right.

“I’m not playing anything. You can’t just come into my room and demand I tell you things that you don’t even know are true,” Albus hissed, making frantic gestures that meant _please leave._

Lily crossed her arms and tutted.  
“Well I’ve been talking to Rose and she reckons you’re totally in love with him. She told me not to ask you about it but that’s no fun at all so tell me. Is it true?”

Albus was about to argue that Rose and Lily both stay out of his business and stop speculating about the nature of his relationship with Scorpius. He wasn’t going to admit to anything, but he wasn’t about to start lying either. Before he could find a middle ground, a loud shout came from the next bed over.

“Potter I swear to Merlin if you have Malfoy in there with you-”

Albus’ face went bright red but before he could even try and give Lily an explanation that didn’t involve the truth, which was full of sleepy early mornings being interrupted by nosy roommates, Scorpius joined the conversation.

“What? I’m in my own bed, Karl,” he mumbled, clearly half asleep but affronted by the claim.

“For once,” Karl shouted back, not even trying to keep his voice down.

He wasn’t homophobic, they’d established that early on. He’d just walked in on them kissing one too many times to tolerate it, which Albus had to admit was fair. It wasn’t their fault Karl had terrible timing, but they could probably be held culpable for making out when they should have been studying.

Albus bit his lip, aware Lily was grinning triumphantly at him in the dim light. He just wanted her gone.  
“It’s just my sister,” he called back, aware that he still had to justify the presence of another voice.

There was a beat of silence. He could almost hear Scorpius’ quick inhale of breath, well aware of what they’d just accidentally revealed. Karl’s own silence was instead due to confusion.

“How did you even manage that?” he asked, genuinely curious. If Albus could sneak in his sister than maybe he could find a way to sneak in his girlfriend.  
“Beats me, it was all her doing,” Albus groaned. Karl made it sound like a great feat, but all Albus wanted was for Lily to _go away_ so he could get some sleep before morning actually came. Besides, apparently he needed to draft a ‘I’m gay and in a relationship with another boy’ speech to his family.

Sensing he was going to get no tips, Karl just turned over and pulled a pillow over his face.

“Well tell her to go away. You can talk tomorrow, can’t you.”

“Yes,” Albus agreed emphatically. “Lily, get back to Gryffindor Tower. And _don’t_ get caught,” he ordered. If she was seen out of bed after hours it was undoubtedly going to end up being his fault somehow.

Rolling her eyes and getting to her feet, Lily put her her hands on her hips.

“This conversation isn’t over!” she vowed, and Albus knew she meant it. Still, he didn’t agree.

“It truly is. _Go._ ”

He flinched when he realised he’d picked up the syntactical quirk from his aunt but he stood strong, pointing in the direction of the door and hoping his sister would chose now as the one moment in her life where she listened to him.

No such luck.

“He said ‘for once’, that means-” Lily began, her eyes sparkling with amusement. She was certain her suspicions had been verified. Scorpius spent nights, _many nights_ by the sound of it, in Albus’ bed. That surely had to mean they were dating.

Albus just shook his head and cut her off. He couldn’t deal with this.

“And we’re done. Lily, please,” he whined, knowing he was close to begging. When she didn’t even flinch from her contrary stance he sighed and gave in just a little. “Fine, we can talk tomorrow. At a sensible time of day. Just let me sleep.”

“Fine,” she huffed, pulling the curtains back so she could skulk across the room and back out the door. It was obvious her questioning wasn’t over and Albus was dreading what she’d ask him in the morning, but at least he was alone for now.

As soon as Lily was gone Albus heard shuffling from Scorpius’ bed. Through the gap in the curtains he could see him pull his own curtains back and tug on his slippers so he could walk across the cold stone floor that came with a dungeon dormitory. For a moment Albus thought he was going to follow Lily, although to say what he had no idea. But instead he looked up and gave Albus a small smile and crossed the small space between their beds   

“What are you doing?” Albus asked as Scorpius toed off his slippers and nudged him over so there was room to sit on the side of the mattress.  
“Well Lily left and we wouldn’t want you getting lonely, would we?” Scorpius said, like it was obvious.

Albus loved the nights Scorpius spent in his bed. They were warm and comfortable and he never wanted morning to come because that meant they had to get up and go to lessons and that was just awful. He was pretty sure it should be considered an illegal form of torture. There were only two problems. One was the mathematics of trying to fit two teenage boys into one single bed, and the other was-

“If you two-” Karl began, the threat and the insinuation obvious.

“We’re not going to have sex in a room full of people, Karl! I’m just sleeping here,” Scorpius stage-whispered back, cutting him off. He dragged the curtains back around Albus’ bed to shut out their annoying roommates and muttered _lumos_ under his breath to light the enclosed space. Albus’ sleepy eyes met his, soft and loving even as he fought to keep them open.  
“You sure? Not a lot of room,” Albus mumbled, yawning. He always gave him an out. Scorpius was hardly short, still all gangly limbs even after puberty had taken its toll, and Albus was always hyperaware that it might not be fun for him to have to be squished into a bed with someone else when he had his own empty bed so close.

Scorpius just rolled his eyes, as he did every time Albus questioned him on the matter. Albus’ bed was always infinitely more comfortable than his own because Albus was in it. Admittedly it was small; the gender charms on the dorms kept straight couples apart at night but the bed sizes more than did enough to keep same-sex couples from sharing beds, unless the person in that bed was Albus and then Scorpius didn’t care about how squashed they would be.  
“Oh no, we’ll have to cuddle,” he said, sarcastically. It was hardly a chore. “Move over, shut up, and go to sleep,” he ordered.

Albus raised an eyebrow, amused by how bossy Scorpius could get. He did as he was told to some degree, shuffling over and creating a Scorpius-sized space that was quickly filled.

“Yes, sir,” Albus yawned.  
“And never call me sir again,” Scorpius said quickly, wrinkling his nose. Their relationship was not gaining any weird submissive tones on his watch.  
“Albus! Scorpius!” Karl shouted, exasperated.

They both groaned in annoyance. Yes, it was late and yes, they were probably louder than they any right to be at such an hour, but it was Lily’s fault more than anyone else’s and they weren’t actively hurting anyone. Albus chose to flip Karl off through the curtains but Scorpius went with a more practical solution. He knoxed the light from his wand and cast a silencing spell around them. They weren’t actually going to do anything, but it would keep their roommates from shouting at them for breathing too loud.

When he was done he felt blindly for Albus’ bedside table and set his wand down, moving back to Albus’ side to shuffle into a comfortable position in the tiny bed. Albus’ hand automatically went to his hair, stroking gently through it. Trailing down to trace Scorpius’ jaw, he drew a gentle circle with his thumb and waited for Scorpius to get the message. After a long moment of revelling in the intimate contact, he realised that Albus wanted a kiss. Fumbling for his boyfriend, Scorpius kissed him gently a few times whilst trying to push as much of a ‘I’m sorry you’re now out to your sister’ message into the affection as possible. When Albus kissed back a little too enthusiastically Scorpius snorted and pushed him gently away.

“Not tonight,” he mumbled. He was serious about not fooling around whilst their roommates were there; Karl probably thought they were already having sex and he wasn’t about to make that come true. It was too creepy. “Just cuddle?” he asked, too sleepy to care about how infantile it sounded.

Albus didn’t care either. He pressed a kiss to Scorpius’ forehead and pulled him closer, wriggling into a comfortable position. It was easier to drift off when he could be certain Scorpius was safe. Seeing him tortured meant a lot of Albus’ nightmares focused on Scorpius in pain and screaming and trying to fight back sobs of fear, and having him in his arms was the perfect reminder that Delphi’s actions were firmly in the past where they belonged. And that was where they were going to stay.


End file.
